Forest Harvest Collective Mark
The Forest Harvest is a collective mark that aims to highlight the forest source and sustainability of product coming from community forestry groups. It covers all non timber forest products that are harvested from the forests, whether from the wild or already domesticated sources. Forest Harvest is based on Participatory guarantee system (PGS) building on local knowledge and peer monitoring and learning.
Traceable Forest Source
Using Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) or other monitoring systems in place, products or the material used can be traced back to well-managed, legally maintained community forests, whether wild or cultivated in home gardens of forest-based communities.
Sustainable
The products are harvested according to the agreed sustainable harvesting protocol for the product, ensuring ecological and production sustainability.
Good Quality:
The product is produced according to market standards and meets existing product quality standards of the market, unless a different standard is agreed upon
The members use the collective mark to identify themselves with a level of quality or a feature (e.g. geographical origin, material, mode of manufacture or other common characteristics of goods or services) distinct to the association. Collective marks can be used together with a member’s own brand, which allows individual companies or groups to differentiate their products while still benefiting from the confidence of the consumers that recognize and trust the collective mark. But membership in the association alone does not permit the use of the collective mark. Its use depends on their compliance to the defined standards of this quality or feature established by the association. Unlike trademarks, collective marks cannot be licensed to another party.